


Brother, Heed the Wrath to Come

by Mertiya



Series: Fire Emblem Missing Scenes [7]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attempted Fratricide, Canon Compliant, Kid Fic, M/M, Poor Sylvain is a fragile little kid, Rated T because Baby Felix has a Mouth on him, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, The Well incident, baby gays, spoilers for Sylvain's backstory I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 07:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21370141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: In which Miklan is a terrible older brother feat. The Well Incident, and Felix is the best friend Sylvain deserves.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: Fire Emblem Missing Scenes [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1472576
Comments: 10
Kudos: 189





	Brother, Heed the Wrath to Come

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Little Brother" by Robert Service.

It’s a crisp, pleasant fall morning. Sylvain looks around, enjoying the soft warmth of the sun on his face. He looks shyly over at Miklan, climbing the slope beside him, something like hope fluttering in his chest. Last night, Miklan _apologized_, said he was sorry for taking out on Sylvain a mess their parents had concocted. Sylvain didn’t sleep for hours, holding the words to his chest like a set of precious pearls. He’s not sure he deserved the apology, really, but he’ll take it. He’s not strong enough to refuse the love he’s craved since he was little.

Miklan looks over at him as well, giving him a crooked, strained smile. It’s the best thing Sylvain has ever seen in all the thirteen years he’s been alive. “Need help?” Miklan asks. “Kind of steep.”

“I’m fine,” Sylvain tells him, smiling brightly. It’s a day just for them. They’re going to have a picnic at the abandoned farmhouse just up the mountain. They’re going to fish in the pond and eat food and maybe rough-house, like brothers do. His chest is full to bursting. Felix asked to come, but just for once, Sylvain told him no. He loves his best friend, but this is just for him and his brother. He’s allowed that much, right?

He’s panting by the time they sight the farm-house, and Miklan reaches out a hand and helps him along the last little bit of the way. Sylvain looks around at the carpet of dead leaves and almost wriggles his feet in his shoes, he’s so happy. “Where should we have the picnic?” he asks eagerly. “Should we fish first, or should we eat?”

Miklan gives him a considering look. “Let’s fish,” he says. He points to the crumbling stone rim of an old well, the bucket lying discarded and decaying beside it. “Why don’t you start baiting the hooks there?”

“Yes!” Sylvain says. “I’ll bait them perfectly, you’ll see!” He practically snatches the bucket from Miklan, rushing to the seat he’s indicated and sits himself down. He hasn’t actually done much fishing before, but he’s going to figure this out. For his big brother, who _loves_ him. Who’s _forgiven_ him. He looks down into the bucket, which is full of a haphazard mess of silver hooks but nothing else. “Where are the worms?” he asks, starting to turn towards Miklan, but before he can finish, he feels Miklan’s hand on his shoulder, twisting him around and giving him one sharp shove. Sylvain screams as abruptly his sturdy seat on the crumbling stone is taken out from under him, as he’s falling, as the pretty blue autumn sky falls away and the stone walls of the well reach up to clutch at him.

He lands with a crack and a crunch and another scream. Pain swells through his ankle, throbbing and awful, but it’s nothing to the pain that swells up in his belly and his heart as he stares up mutely at Miklan’s face, blank and pitiless, looking down at him from above. Stinging tears rise to Sylvain’s eyes, and he sobs.

“And there you can stay, little brother,” Miklan says mockingly.

“Miklan—” Sylvain says, pleadingly. “Don’t leave me.”

Miklan doesn’t even bother to answer. Sylvain screams his name again as the daylight diminishes and round blue hole above disappears. His older brother has pulled something across the top of the well, sealing him inside.

Something inside Sylvain cracks, and the next moment he’s screaming and crying, pounding his fists against the old cold stone of the well until he can feel them swelling up, until he can feel blood trickling from the scrapes he’s made. “Miklan,” he sobs. “_Miklan_.” Tears and snot drip down his face. He’s disgusting. He’s so disgusting and awful. He should never have been born. He thinks he can feel his crest burning like a fire in his chest, turning love to hate, turning everyone against him.

After a long time, the terrible wave of grief lets go, leaving him hollow and numb and wrung out. He leans his head back against the stone wall of the well that’s going to be his tomb. Tears are still trickling down his cheeks, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, because Miklan still hates him. Miklan hasn’t forgiven him. It was all just a lie.

He wishes Miklan had just asked him to die. He wishes he’d told him. Sylvain doesn’t know if he would’ve come, but he might have. He doesn’t really begrudge his own death—he knows why Miklan has always hated him, and he knows it was stupid to hope that anything had changed—but he wishes Miklan hadn’t pretended. It’s the fact that for a few hours, he thought he knew what love felt like that makes it hurt so much now that he knows it was just all a lie. He turns his face to the stone wall, curling his knees into his chest, and shuts his eyes, wondering how long it will take him to die.

~

He wakes to daylight spearing painfully down into his eyes, a voice calling his name over and over again, and he blinks up at the small silhouette above.

“_Sylvain_!”

It’s Felix. Sylvain doesn’t know how he got here. Neither he nor Miklan told anyone where they were going, and it’s not like the abandoned farmhouse is much of a good spot for anything except, he thinks bitterly, hiding fratricide. “Sylvain, answer me! You’re not dead, are you?”

Sylvain blinks his eyes slowly. His mouth is dry and disgusting, and his head and ankle are aching fiercely. Before he can gather himself to figure out what to say in response to Felix’s terrified query, his friend has already swung himself over the side of the well and is shimmying down towards him. Felix lands with a splash in the shallow water beside him and bends over him.

“Fe?” Sylvain groans. “You’ll be stuck too.”

“Oh, Goddess.” Felix drops down beside him. “Oh, _Sylvain_.”

“Just leave me,” Sylvain says, turning his face back to the wall and shutting his eyes.

“Shut up, I’m not leaving you,” Felix snarls. “I’m getting you out of here and then I’m going to _kill_ him.”

“It’s not his fault,” Sylvain mutters miserably. “It’s mine.”

“What are you _talking_ about?” Felix demands, angrily. He’s always had a short temper, and Sylvain wants to explain, wants to put words around why he, Sylvain, is not worth it and why he shouldn’t have been born and why his birth is what made Miklan what he is, but that all seems like a lot of effort, so he just shrugs instead. “You’re stupid,” Felix tells him, and a splash of moisture plops onto Sylvain’s nose. A moment later, his small arms are around Sylvain’s neck. “You’re so stupid. Get up.”

“I can’t,” Sylvain tells him patiently. “I think my leg’s broken.”

“I’m going to _gut_ him,” Felix growls. “Okay, can you hold on if I carry you on my back?”

“Maybe?” Sylvain hazards. “But that’s dangerous, you could fall—”

Felix puts a hand on each of his shoulders, and it’s amazing how fierce the little boy can look. “Listen to me,” he says. “I’m not leaving you here, and I _am_ getting you out, and you are not going to die, and it’s not your fault you were _fucking born_.”

Sylvain swallows his immediate response; instead, shakily, he nods. “Okay, Fe,” he whispers.

Felix helps him get up into a standing position, leaning heavily against the back of the well and on his good leg, and then he turns around and lets Sylvain wrap his arms across his chest. Sylvain is too tall, he thinks, and there’s no way they’re going to be able to get out, but he doesn’t say that. “Hold on, and don’t you dare let go,” Felix instructs him, and then he spreads his hands and his legs out, hunching over so Sylvain is on top of him.

It’s crazy, Sylvain thinks. There’s no way this should work, but the well is narrow, and Felix may be small but he’s wiry and strong from sparring with Glenn, and to Sylvain’s surprise, they start lurching upwards. “You’re amazing,” he tells Felix.

“Can’t talk,” Felix grunts as he reaches for another handhold.

“I can,” Sylvain points out. Felix groans, but he’s clearly too busy saving his breath to respond again. “And I’m saying you’re amazing and I don’t deserve a best friend as great as you.”

Angry grunt. Felix jerks them up another couple of inches, then pauses, gulping in deep breaths, his muscles quivering underneath Sylvain’s dead weight. After a few minutes, he starts climbing again. Sylvain decides not to distract him again after they pass the halfway mark of the well, because he can’t stand the thought of getting his friend hurt.

Felix’s movement is slow but it’s steady. It takes them a long time—maybe half an hour—but eventually they do reach the top few feet. Sylvain puts up a hand and catches the stone lip of the well, and between the two of them, they’re able to clamber the rest of the way out. Sylvain sinks down, wincing at the pain in his ankle, and Felix throws himself down on his back and pants and gasps. “Why are you so heavy,” he says after a few minutes.

“I’m sorry,” Sylvain says dizzily.

“Why are you _sorry_!”

“Um,” says Sylvain.

“If you don’t stop apologizing, I’ll—I’ll _kiss_ you. Jerk.”

And that takes the wind out of Sylvain’s sails so hard that all he can do is start giggling. “Ooh, what a threat,” he gasps. “You’ll kiss me?”

“Well, you’re hurt already, I’m not going to punch you,” Felix mutters mulishly. “And you’d get my disgusting slobber all over your mouth so you’d _have_ to shut up.”

“It would be terrible,” Sylvain agrees solemnly. “Definitely a fitting punishment.” Out of the well, in the sunlight, he doesn’t feel quite so terrible. He’s worth something to somebody, even if his brother hates him. So maybe he can accept continuing to live. Well—he’d better. He can’t really waste all of Felix’s hard work. Although some perverse instinct inside him is clamoring to apologize again (and one tiny part wonders if he _wants_ to trigger Felix’s threat?), he stays quiet; instead, he just reaches over and pats Felix’s shoulder. “Thanks, Fe,” he says.

“Shut up,” Felix tells him.

Twelve years later, Felix finally makes good on his threat.


End file.
